


Everyone who loves me has died

by belmanoir



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-11
Updated: 2016-02-11
Packaged: 2018-05-19 17:57:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,199
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5976049
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/belmanoir/pseuds/belmanoir
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Burr is haunted by Hamilton's ghost. <em>Alexander has been talking for eight solid days about the importance of an independent judiciary. He doesn't have to stop for breath anymore.</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	Everyone who loves me has died

**Author's Note:**

> Hamilton's quote about an independent judiciary is adapted from [Federalist No. 78](http://thomas.loc.gov/home/histdox/fed_78.html).

1\. 

_Richmond Hill, New York (Aaron Burr's house)_

"Well, if it isn't Aaron Burr," says a disgruntled voice behind him.

"Sir?" Aaron spins around. It can't be—but it is. Alexander stands by his bookshelf, looking none the worse for wear. 

Aaron stands frozen, his headache bursting behind his temples like a mortar shell. Then he laughs, a high, exuberant, uncontrollable sound, and starts forward, arms spread. "Alexander! Your horrible friends told me you were dead."

Alexander reaches out to pull a book off the shelf, and his hand passes through it. He glares and tries again, and again, and with each impossible moment Aaron's heart climbs higher in his throat until he thinks he might have to spit it out onto his desk. 

"Oh, I'm dead," Alexander says, crossing his arms. "Listen, I'm going to need you to write something down for me."

*

Looking at Alexander gives him a migraine. At first Aaron thinks it must be something subtly wrong, something spectral and unnatural in his appearance. But when he gets up the courage to look harder, he can see Alexander too damn clearly. The splendid frowning line of his brow, the exquisite arch of his nose, his tight, self-righteous mouth. 

Those beautiful dark eyes used to light up when Alexander saw him. Now they follow him accusingly about the room.

Eventually he admits the only thing wrong with Alexander's appearance is that he's taken to hovering a few inches off the ground to make himself taller. It's disconcerting, sure. But it's not causing the migraine. That's regret.

*

Justice Chase's impeachment trial in the Senate is starting soon, and Alexander has been talking for eight solid days about the importance of an independent judiciary. He doesn't have to stop for breath anymore. His throat doesn't get sore, his lungs don't get tired. He doesn't need to sleep. Aaron hasn't slept for eight days. Alexander's lovely crisp face is blurred. "If you deny it, you might as well say that the deputy is greater than his principal, that the servant is above his master, that the representatives of the people are superior to the people themselves..."

Aaron collapses on the sofa in his office, slinging an arm over his aching eyes.

"Burr, are you listening to me?"

He groans. "I should have shot you in the mouth."

The first silence in days. For a moment Aaron thinks he's going to fall asleep on the spot, but he doesn't, so he peeks under his arm. Alexander actually looks hurt. Aaron considers withdrawing his crass remark, but then Alexander just launches into another explanation. "There's no reason to think that would make a difference. You caved in two of my ribs, yet there's no visible damage now. Logic was never your strong suit, Burr."

Anger roars through Aaron's exhausted frame like fire through straw. His eyes ache with it. If he could kill Alexander again, he'd do it. _You can't even call me by my first name._

Alexander goes back to expounding on the whims of legislatures and the tyranny of the majority as if nothing happened. 

"Why did you do it?" Aaron demands.

"Do what?"

"Fire in the air."

"If you don't know, I can't explain it to you," Alexander says primly.

Aaron feels worse than ever. "Do you regret it?"

Alexander goes to the window and looks down at New York. "Dante places Brutus in the lowest circle of hell, even though he betrayed Caesar to save Rome from tyranny."

Aaron blinks. Is Alexander admitting that he betrayed Aaron? Is he saying he was _wrong_? "Don't you think tyranny is a strong word?"

"What? Oh, I'm not talking about you."

Aaron grits his teeth. Of course not.

"I chose my principles, my duty, over Eliza. I always do. I can't see another course. I couldn't have kept silent in the election, and I couldn't refuse your challenge, and I couldn't shoot you, but—now I have no duty and no Eliza." He puts a hand through the window in the vague direction of his family's house. He looks at the sun gilding his fingers, very sadly. "I left her flat broke, too. I'm not as disastrous at managing my money as you, obviously, but..."

No one else can see or hear Alexander. Definitely not Eliza. Aaron spotted her and a couple of the children on the other side of the street a few days ago, when he skulked outside to buy groceries. He pulled his hat over his face and looked the other way, but Alexander went running through traffic to try to talk to them. Nothing. (Except some panicked horses, but Aaron doesn't think they _saw_ him, just felt his icy form pass through them.)

Aaron remembers reading of a seventeenth-century case where a murderer was driven to confess by the ghost of his victim. Not that this was murder.

He's been hiding in the house for fear of running into Eliza again (or an angry mob of Alexander's fans, whichever). But if his late wife were haunting someone, Aaron would want to know. He takes a deep breath. "If you asked me to bear her a message—"

Alexander laughs, unexpected and bright. "If I wanted to see my wife hanged for your murder I would definitely ask you to do that."

*

On the tenth day, Aaron offers to use his vice presidential influence in the Senate to save an independent judiciary from Jefferson, in exchange for Alexander leaving him alone about his plans to get the Western states to secede and help him steal Mexico from the Spanish.

Alexander tilts his head, considering. "Deal. That's never going to work out anyway."

"Hey!"

"You can't trust Wilkinson."

Aaron laughs. "Wilkinson eats out of my hand."

 

2\. 

_A moving coach near Richmond, Virginia_

"'Wilkinson eats out of my hand,'" Alexander repeats for probably the millionth time, gleefully. In the event, Wilkinson stabbed Aaron in the back and brought the whole glorious plan crashing down around his ears. They're in a carriage under heavy guard, bearing Aaron in ignominy to his trial.

Aaron slouches and pulls his hat over his head. Alexander leans out to wave at the gawkers, then plops back into his seat. A distant, private smile suffuses his face. "Eliza must be so happy."

Aaron is angry—but part of him is glad, too. At least someone is getting something out of this. He doesn't even want to think about what Theodosia must be feeling. He definitely doesn't want to think about what she'll _say_ to him. He wrote and asked her to attend his trial, so the jury can see he's a family man, but maybe he should have told her to stay home.

If they hang him, will she insist on watching? His throat feels tight. It hurts to swallow. "Is dying painful?" 

Alexander raises an eyebrow. "Dying itself isn't bad at all. It was the lead-up that hurt."

Aaron knows. He read the newspaper accounts, and the reprinted letters, and the pamphlets. He's even got that memorial book of eulogies the _Evening Post_ put out around somewhere. He knows Alexander lingered in agony for a day before dying. 

Naturally he was brave about it. Aaron will just have to do his best to fake it.

"Do you think you'd get to haunt Jefferson?" Alexander's eyes gleam with sudden enthusiasm.

The pain in his throat worsens. "I did love you, you know."

"Note the past tense," Alexander says sarcastically. "But don't start the deathbed confessions just yet. For a treason conviction the Constitution requires"—he shuts his eyes—"'the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act, or confession in open court.' You've been pretty sneaky and noncommittal, I don't think they've got an overt act. And John Marshall is going to preside at the trial. He owes you because of that time I made you save his ass on the independent judiciary thing." His eyes fly open. "You should subpoena Thomas Jefferson!"

"What?"

"Because he has the letters Wilkinson sent him accusing you of treason, with a probably materially edited copy of the cipher letter you allegedly wrote. Jefferson will refuse to come and it will cast doubt on the letters. Please please please please subpoena him! I really wanted to do it for a libel case I defended recently but it didn't work out." He rubs his hands together. "Oh, I'd love to see his face. He thinks that just because he's president now he doesn't have to answer to anybody."

Aaron sits up, brain whirring. It's a great idea, and more importantly, John Marshall will eat it up with a spoon. "I need you to stand near me at the trial."

"Of course," Alexander says at once, shoulders straightening. "They aren't going to hang you, Burr. Not with my immense legal expertise at your disposal."

Aaron has a vision of Alexander talking solidly all through his trial, and he himself breaking down into hysterically screaming at nothing. He'd be lucky to get guilty but insane. "Let's just caucus like live co-counsels, shall we? I meant, because Virginia is really fucking hot and you're like a block of ice."

Alexander looks affronted.

Aaron can't explain his panic at the thought of any of them seeing him sweat. "It will give me a legal edge. They'll all be baking in that courthouse, and I'll be cool as a cucumber."

"Give _us_ a legal edge," Alexander mutters. "You always did prefer theatrics to law."

 

3.

_A garret, Paris_

Aaron turns the page of the book he's translating, which he realized after accepting the commission is mostly nasty political commentary about himself. Alexander reads over his shoulder. He'd complain but in this tiny garret, there's nowhere else for Alexander to stand.

"I think a better translation of 'cold-blooded' would be—"

"Shut up," Aaron says between his teeth. 

Alexander bristles. "I can't help it if I speak better French than you."

Aaron is despairingly conscious that there is no lower he can sink. Napoleon isn't going to agree to meet with him or finance another Mexico expedition. He should just give up and go home. But New York—can he live in New York again? And how can he just go back to practicing law as if none of it had ever happened? If he doesn't achieve something, something enormous, why did he survive? What if there's no reason at all? 

Has he been waiting all this time for nothing? Is this his punishment: for Alexander to witness him suffering one humiliation after another, for the rest of his life?

In the tiny room, already barely heated, he can feel the chill coming off of Alexander. By now that turns him on. There is nowhere to look, sit, or sleep where Alexander isn't _right there_ , crammed in with him like a very attractive sardine.

"You're tense," Alexander says. "I can take off for a while if you want to bring a girl home." 

Aaron almost takes him up on it. Sex is about the only bright spot in his life these days. But the truth is, he wants sex with Alexander. Desperately. God, he was all heat and effervescence in bed; even before he was dead, Aaron sometimes felt like crying thinking he would never have him again.

There is no lower he can sink. "Do you remember...?" he begins, then loses his nerve.

"Remember what?"

"Remember when we used to be lovers?"

Alexander looks surprised. "Of course. I remember everything I remembered in life." He looks wistfully at the book and the dictionary, whose pages he can't turn. "Like how to speak French," he mutters.

Aaron doesn't say that he sometimes wondered if Alexander had forgotten in life. "Do you miss sex?"

Alexander shrugs. "I guess it depends what you mean by 'miss.'" He wanders the single step to the drafty window. "I miss Eliza."

The air is slightly less arctic with him farther away, but Aaron doesn't feel any warmer. "Can you still have it?"

Alexander shakes his head. "I don't feel things anymore. Not physical things. I'm not hungry or thirsty or horny or tired." His foot passes through Aaron's chair when he kicks it. "I could get so much done if I could just hold a pen."

"You don't feel anything at all?"

"Cold," Alexander says. "I feel cold. And I thought New York winters were bad."

*

That night Aaron can't get warm. He can't get warm and he can't stop thinking about his mistakes and how to make this horrible attic sound funny when he tells Theodosia about it. "Alexander?" he says softly.

The wave of cold when Alexander appears is a kind of solace. "Yes?"

"Get in bed with me." It's humiliating but who is Alexander going to tell? "Please."

"Don't be ridiculous, you'll catch your death." Alexander stands by the edge of the cot, looking down at Aaron. "You should buy less sugar and cigars and invest in another blanket. Or two. You don't take care of yourself. What would your wife say if she could see you? And you drink too much—"

Aaron has sat through this lecture about a thousand times already. "Alexander." He can hear the note of desperation in his own voice.

Silence. "Just for a minute." 

Aaron scoots back against the wall, and Alexander lies down on his side, facing away. Aaron curls into him, pressing his nose into Alexander's hair. His face goes right through; it burns like frostbite. He clings to that pain, makes it part of himself, breathes it in and feels his sinuses stinging.

When Alexander pulls away Aaron takes a big gulp of ordinary cold air, chest heaving like he's coming out of an icy river, and almost starts to cry. He shakes and can't stop. His nose and cheeks hurt sharply. So do his knees.

"I told you." Alexander sounds miserable too. "You should get up and drink some hot tea."

"I wanted it." 

Alexander sits on the floor, his knees pulled up to his chest. "Go home, Burr."

"I can't."

There's a long, long silence. Aaron turns and shifts in the bed, but he can't sleep. Alexander's voice comes out of the darkness. "Remember that night you were visiting headquarters at Morristown? I was working late on that report for the Continental Congress, and I couldn't focus anymore?"

Aaron's breath catches. God, yes, he remembers it. "No, I don't think so."

He can hear Alexander's smirk in his voice. "You said I should take a break, and did I have a key to the door. I knew from the way you said it what you meant, and I felt so pleased with myself. I locked the door, and you kissed me....is this ringing any bells?"

Yes. All the tiny golden bells in Aaron's body are ringing a brilliant carillon. "Not yet."

"You kissed me, and kissed me, and I wanted you to put your hand on my cock but you were such a tease..."

His voice goes on in the darkness, filthily, that voice that charmed George Washington and made a bank and convinced not one but two Schuyler sisters to love him. It's entirely Aaron's now. No one else can even hear it. It's wrong to gloat about that, but he does.

 

4.

_New York, but not Richmond Hill, that was repossessed_

"You have to behave yourself while Theodosia is here," Aaron says for the hundredth time. "I don't want her to think I'm crazy." He plumps up the pillows on the sofa, also for the hundredth time. He can't stand still. He can hear the excitement in his own voice. "And don't get too close to her. She hasn't been feeling well. I'm sure it's just the Southern air, though. She'll feel better once she's in New York."

*

_a week later_

Aaron can't get out of bed. He can't stop crying. He can't remember the last time he ate. "Why can't I see her?" he demands. "She was coming to visit me when the ship went down. I killed her. Why can't I see her?"

"I don't think that's how it works." Alexander looks sick himself. "I've wondered. If George Eaker can see my son and I can't—" He turns his face away and vanishes abruptly.

"Alexander?" Panic consumes him. What if Alexander has only been waiting to witness this, Aaron's final punishment? What if he's at peace now and he doesn't come back and Aaron never speaks to another person again? "Alexander!"

Alexander winks back into existence. 

"Stay," Aaron says. "Please."

Alexander nods and stands by the bed, his posture stiff. He doesn't cry. Aaron doesn't think he's physically capable of it now.

"Does it get easier?"

"No," Alexander says tightly. "It doesn't. Less...all-consuming, maybe. But not easier." 

Aaron cries into his pillow. After a while, Alexander hums a lullaby that Aaron remembers singing to Theodosia, that he must have sung to Phillip too. She was a warm weight in his arms, when she fell asleep to the sound of his voice Aaron felt like a Colossus. He cries more.

Alexander's presence is comforting, proof that you can bear any blow and still be a small, straight figure, unchanged in some essential way. When everything that matters to you has been stripped away, you can still go on—not living, maybe, but doing a good enough impression to fool the unobservant.

 

5.

_a law office, New York, fifteen years later_

Alexander points imperiously. "Move that file, it's covering the bottom of the affadavit."

Aaron finishes adding up their client's soon-to-be ex-husband's debts.

" _Burr._ "

Aaron is struck for the thousandth time by the smoothness of Alexander's hands in the lamplight, when his own have bent and wrinkled.

"It's your fault I can't move it myself, you could at least not make me wait," Alexander grumbles. 

Aaron snorts, but he moves the file.

"Burr, can I ask you something?" 

The abrupt, diffident note in his voice reminds Aaron of how Alexander was when they first met, sure of his worth but still worried about his welcome. He doesn't think about those days much anymore. Unexpectedly, his eyes sting. "Sure, but I'm not promising to answer."

"You walked towards me."

"What?"

"You walked towards me, and Van Ness pulled you away."

He remembers.

"Van Ness said you wanted to go back, after he put you in the boat. That you said you needed to speak to me."

He remembers that, too.

"What did you want to say?"

Aaron is silent.

"What would you say to me, if you thought it was going to be the last thing you ever said to me?"

He knows the answer. He always has. _I'm sorry._

He doesn't say it. The words stick in his throat—he's never done much apologizing—and anyway he has a lot more he wants to say to Alexander after that. Part of him is afraid that if he says it, it _will_ be the last thing. That Alexander's only been waiting around all this time to hear it.

Part of him isn't sorry. It turns out it's not so bad, being a ghost.

"Stay," he says. "I was going to ask you to stay."


End file.
